Young Greek of the Week

Name

Tiffany Papaemanouil, 18, Year 12 SACE graduate, and winner of 9 medals at the 2009 Pan Hellenic Games.

Greatest achievements

My performance in the Australian Short Course Championships. I placed fourth in Australia in the 200m and third in the 100m individual medley. This competition saw my first medal positioning in an open age event.

Your future goals

To one day represent my country on the gold medal podium at the Olympic Games but in order to reach that I must strive to achieve smaller goals such as qualifying for the Commonwealth games or other Australian open teams.

Best moment of my life

When I was around the age of 15 and I won my first Australian Age medal - it made me realise why swimmers train up to 20 hours a weeks for a race that only lasts a few minutes.

One word that describes you best

MACHINE!

Persons I most admire

Australian Olympic swimmer Stephanie Rice whose accomplishments I want to emulate. My parents for putting up with getting up at 4am for my training sessions.

Most embarrassing moment

When I was in school and I was leaning back on my chair and one of my friends behind me was like, “Wow Tiff look at your arm muscles! Show me your stomach muscles!” All I remember is standing up in the class when everyone was taking notes and it was dead silent and going to flex my stomach when all of a sudden I let rip so loud that even the teacher commented.

If I could say anything to the Greek community…

I want to make the community proud by being the first Greek female swimmer to win Olympic gold.

Favourite place to go or hang out at

I really love the movies! I love watching a real scary horror or action movie.

Song that I can’t get out of my head at the moment:

Russian Roulette-Rihanna.

Favourite Greek food

Dolmades. I once had a competition with my cousin who could eat the most. By the end I had eaten 80 and she had eaten 83 - one hour later and we both weren’t feeling too good!

I can’t live without…

Videos. I watch movies when I am bored, travelling, in between swimming sessions and races or when I just need to pass the time.

If I was Kevin Rudd for a day I would…

Contribute more funding to swimming.